


What About Lily?

by The_Carnivorous_Muffin



Series: Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus [41]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bickering, F/M, Female Harry Potter, Friendship/Love, Humor, Master of Death Harry Potter, Psychology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 07:33:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15769491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Carnivorous_Muffin/pseuds/The_Carnivorous_Muffin
Summary: Lenin and Lily casually bicker about and discuss Neville's competence in potions, friendship and how neither of them have real friends, utilitarianism and the solution of pushing fat people off of trains, glass houses, the merits of choosing not to discuss Freud, and more.





	What About Lily?

Ah, the fragrant smell of eye of newt, sweat of pig, sulfur, kerosene, and Neville Longbottom’s pure unadulterated fear. In other words, it was yet another day in Lily’s second year of Hogwarts, spent once again in the Potion’s classroom, wishing she was anywhere else in the world.

 

Even in the Chamber of Secrets fighting giant snakes that Wizard Lenin wouldn’t tell her all the details about because reasons he would tell her.

 

And judging by Wizard Lenin’s rather intense expression of disdainful boredom and contempt, he was probably thinking the same thing, or at least was beyond his breaking point after having been paired with Neville every Potions class thus far.

 

It seemed, that for whatever reason, Snape was determined to break Wizard Lenin’s spirit entirely or else force him to homicide. That, or, he’d somehow miraculously realized within three classes that Lenin Rabbitson was one of the three students who could prevent travesty and the annihilation of the classroom when Neville’s potion inevitably exploded and or melted.

 

“I once had a dream of a world without potions class… It was nice, and a lot less greasy.” Lily confessed, although Hermione didn’t seem to care, just kept chopping away at ingredients, ignoring Lily with an enthusiasm that only Hermione Granger could manage.

 

This was also rather familiar.

 

However, relatively new was Wizard Lenin’s appearance in the physical world, and his ability to vent his endless frustrations on someone besides Lily.

 

“Longbottom, you can’t seriously be this incompetent.” Wizard Lenin stated with his trademark glare, after having narrowly managed to catch a lethal addition to the potion du jour, causing Neville to shrivel up into his chair like a slug under a microscope, “It’s embarrassing for both of us.”

 

“I’m um… I’m really sorry, Lenin but I…”

 

“But you what? Aren’t you taking remedial potions already? It’s almost inconceivable what a walking disaster you are, because surely even if someone tried, they couldn’t reproduce your results!”

 

“I do but… I mean, it’s mostly with Headmaster Dumbledore and…”

 

“You mean to say that you’re honestly so pathetic at potions that the Headmaster himself has to instruct you for the safety of our school? Is that what you’re really telling…”

 

Lily decided it was probably high time to interrupt before Wizard Lenin destroyed Neville’s ego entirely, “Hey, Lenin, give him a break, it’s not his fault he’s so mind numbingly terrified of Snape. Granted, I don’t exactly understand why anyone would be terrified of Snape but I’m sure there’s some reason in there somewhere that some people might find him slightly alarming rather than distasteful.”

 

Lenin Rabbitson’s cold blue eyes turned to her, a rather flat expression crossing them, and he said in his normal suave if cutting tone that didn’t at all suit his twelve-year-old body, “The fact that you, of all people, feel the need to defend him says more about this situation than I ever could.”

 

Lily paused for a moment, reflected on this, caught the way he was staring at her as if he was waiting for her to put two and two together and fail to get four, and she knew he was thinking something snide about her but, “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

 

“Twenty points from Default, Potter, for idle chat.” Snape said as he walked by, almost as an afterthought rather than any real point of punishment, and it said a lot about the hopelessness of Default’s situation that not even Zabini or Greengrass (who were the only ones really concentrating on the potion out of Default since they weren’t quite at the mastery level required to gossip and brew at the same time) commented on it.

 

“If you haven’t noticed you lack any form of empathy.”

 

There was something ironic about Wizard Lenin telling her that she lacked empathy but she couldn’t quite put it into words.

 

“Hey, I feel things for people…” Lily said trailing off as she tried to recall a particularly winning instance, “I felt really bad about Hermione almost being killed by a troll that one time.”

 

Hermione stopped brewing the potion, having forbidden Lily from touching it for whatever reason (apparently to learn things, because Lily’s cheating didn’t count), to cast Lily a sideways glare but Lily ignored it.

 

After all, Hermione was perfectly aware that before she’d almost been pulverized by a troll she hadn’t had any friends. And that even afterwards she was mostly this obnoxious dictionary who showed up to tell everyone how wrong they were about everything and it’d taken her almost being pulverized by Squirrel for her to stop it.

 

Although, putting it that way, as far as Lily could tell Hermione really was only close friends with Neville, if that. The whole Squirrel incident had instilled major trust issues into her.

 

Wizard Lenin turned back to his potion, stirring it and adding in a handful of some ingredient or another, even as he kept speaking, “No, you’re thinking sympathy. Empathy is where you’re able to place yourself in the position of someone else’s position without having been in it yourself. Taking your example, you felt bad for Hermione because you also have no friends and you have personal reference for what it feels like to be universally disliked by everyone who has ever met you.”

 

“Rabbitson, you do know that I know where you live, don’t you?” Hermione said, carefully, and received a rather cheerful smile in response from Lenin. Because baiting Hermione was his new pastime.

 

Lily, for her own part, was almost just as affronted, “I have friends!”

 

Wizard Lenin looked incredibly dubious, and said, “Try excluding me from your list, I don’t count.”

 

Well shit, when he put it like that it shortened things dramatically. Never the less Lily pounded her fist on the table, “I don’t need you on my list, Lenin! I have a house! Let’s see there’s Hermione here…”

 

Wizard Lenin looked unimpressed, “Tolerates you at best and makes insultingly blatant use of you for her own agenda.”

 

“There’s Neville, sitting next to you…”

 

Wizard Lenin’s eyes slid to the quivering Neville, “Are you sure you want to count him?”

 

“There’s Zabini and Greengrass…”

 

“Who believe you’re England’s next dark lord and are trying to get into your inner circle before even graduating.” Wizard Lenin finished for her, nodding back to the pair who looked up, blinked, and then neutrally chose not to comment as they often did.

 

“Luna Lovegood, there, can’t discount her, can you?”

 

Wizard Lenin paused and a brief uncertainty crossed over his features, “I’ll admit I have no idea what’s going on with Lovegood.”

 

“See I have…”

 

“Two friends, Ellie, two friends from your own school, who are your age and are not refugees from Albania. And one of them can’t even seem to handle Snape and the other once spent a weekend speaking in limericks.” Then Wizard Lenin smiled pleasantly, as if by this alone he had just won his argument, and turned back to his potion and Neville, “Now, that said, Longbottom, don’t touch anything. Ever.”

 

“…Right, I… I won’t.”

 

“What about you? Where are all of your pals?” Lily said and then swiftly added, “And if I can’t count you on my list then you can’t count me either.”

 

“Naturally I have no friends,” Wizard Lenin said before blandly adding, “Friendship is for the weak.”

 

“However, I wasn’t defending Neville Longbottom from irrefutable facts about his character. You, being something akin to a sociopath, have absolutely no room to defend anyone’s fragile emotions.” Wizard Lenin mused, patting Neville on the shoulder with one hand as if in consolidation or else friendship with that alarmingly charming smile.

 

“I wasn’t saying Neville wasn’t terrible at Potions, no offense Neville,” Lily said, her eyes darting to Neville for a brief moment before she would continue.

 

“Uh… none taken, I think…”

 

“I’m just saying that you don’t have to point it out every two seconds. Believe me, Neville is perfectly aware how bad he is at potions. It’s not like anyone goes out of their way not to tell him.”

 

Then Lily paused, considered his words again, “Hey, wait a minute, I’m not a sociopath.”

 

“Hermione, do you want to remind Ellie of what the definition of sociopathy is or should I?” Wizard Lenin asked, to which Hermione glared in response, and said, “I’m pretty sure you’re a sociopath, Lenin.”

 

Wizard Lenin, naturally, ignored Hermione as he always tended to do in this kind of a setting, “It’s not that you lack feelings, Ellie, but you lack social conscious and moral responsibility. That, or your sense of morality is so skewed to your own upbringing that you are incapable of adapting to society’s standards.”

 

“…Glass houses, Lenin.”

 

“No, I know the rules, I just choose to disregard them, there’s a very large difference.” Wizard Lenin said, and then said with a dramatic hand gesture, “Alright then, let’s have a test. A train is speeding along the tracks, unfortunately, because of an accident on the rails, you need to stop the train, the brakes are out, and the only way you see to stop the train is to throw a fat man over the rails and onto the track in front of you…”

 

“That wouldn’t stop a train.” Lily stated, blinking.

 

“That’s hardly the point. The point is, do you throw the fat man off or do you sacrifice everyone on board?”

 

“That can’t be the only way to stop the train.”

 

“Your lack of imagination astounds me sometimes,” Lenin said drily, “In this entirely hypothetical situation, Ellie, it’s the only way to stop the train.”

 

“Potter, thirty points from Default for distracting your peers!” Snape called from the other end of the room, and was once again ignored by every single person in the classroom.

 

Except for Lily who couldn’t help but point out, “Goddammit, Snape, that wasn’t even me this time!”

 

“Fifty more for language and detention with Lockhart!”

 

Lily shuddered, “Ugh, Lockhart… I am so tired of detentions with Lockhart.”

 

Then pulling herself together she decided to get back to answering Lenin’s questions, “Well you’re kind of giving me no choice here…”

 

“I’m giving you two choices, you do nothing, or you push him off. Now, which will it be, Ellie?”

 

“Well then obviously I push him off, since it’s that or kill everyone else.”

 

Wizard Lenin smiled, “Excellent, now, let’s try a harder, if more familiar version. You’re alone in a castle where no one will believe a word you say, all your allies are inaccessible and cannot help you, and those who can help you choose to do nothing. Inside the castle is someone who, while not set out to murder those around him, will do so if it gets him what he wants and certainly will get around to it in ten or twenty years, and only you have the capability of stopping him. However, to stop him, you are left with no choice but to kill him. Thus, you have only two options, do nothing, and condemn all those who say nothing to death in a decade or so, or kill him yourself and spare the death toll.”

 

That, was a bit too far for a Potion’s classroom discussion. After all, that was a little close to home, Lily had been in that situation before, was perhaps in that situation now, and regardless of circumstances it seemed her answer would remain the same, “I kill him myself.”

 

“Yes, you kill him yourself. Of course, many people would pick that answer, what makes yours so interesting, Ellie, is that you are so certain that this will always be the correct response. You never hesitate or deliberate when coming to that conclusion alone would destroy a lesser man. To you, utilitarianism is hardly anything worth discussing, there’s no moral dilemma, no debate, to do anything other than the action is unthinkable.”

 

There was a lot Lily could say to that, one that this was hardly the time and place for this sort of talk, the second that she’d lost whatever meandering point Lenin had started this whole thing with, and of course she could always talk about Lenin and his other pieces and the ultimatums they seemed to love pushing her to.

 

However, this wasn’t the time or the place for any of that, and never would be. So instead, she simply said, “Lenin, I’m just going to say that Doctor Mitchell was a way better therapist than you are.”

 

For a moment, Lenin said nothing, just sort of stared at her, and then as he finished his potion and prepared a vial, “You know, Ellie, being a traumatized Albanian refugee with an abomination for a brother, I’m going to take that as a compliment, and point out that I’m not suited to be anyone’s therapist.”

 

“That’s probably true, you didn’t even analyze our relationship, or mention anything about Freud.”

 

Lenin paused, blinked, then shuddered visibly, and said almost weakly, “Ellie, there are two things we are never going to do. We are never going to analyze our relationship and we are never going to discuss Freud.”

 

(Ten minutes later, on the way out of the classroom, she heard Hermione whisper to Neville, “If I have to listen to them flirt one more time…”

 

And Lily suddenly had the alarming thought that she didn’t really want to think about that… Or Freud.)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt asking for a return of Doctor Mitchell, or at least psychology, so we have this canon adventure.
> 
> Thanks for reading, comments, kudos, and bookmarks are greatly appreciated.


End file.
